Steve Ringer For once, practice makes perfect...
After three years of near-misses, Steve’s side are finally through to next year’s World Club Feeder Championship final
OVER the last four years one competition has bugged me more than any other – the World Club qualifier for feeder anglers.
Having missed out for three years, we decided to put in a solid three days of practice this time to try and formulate a team plan at Arrow Valley Lakes in Redditch, Worcestershire. After that we felt we had a tactic sorted out that could see us end the hoodoo.
Arrow has been famous over the years for bream, but we didn’t feel
there were many of them, so we treated them as a bonus only and instead focused on the small fish – roach, perch, and skimmers.
a decenT sTarT
This year’s team was brother Phil, Rob Wootton, Adam Wakelin, Jamie Harrison and me. We felt we had a decent draw overall, with just Jamie’s peg on the tricky side.
I set him a target of finishing third, which we felt as was as good as he could realistically get.
Every team had two end pegs in their sequence to try and make it as fair as possible, and the key was to make your end pegs count.
Rob and Adam had our two ends so they needed to win. Phil’s and my draws were steady, so we had to be in the top two!
BaiTing for all species
In practice we played around with mixes, and while it was clear that a fishmeal mix caught more skimmers, it didn’t produce numbers of roach and perch.
The roach were of a good stamp, 2oz-4oz, and plentiful.
We settled on using two bags of Ringers F1 Dark, a sweet fishmeal, which would catch all three key species and keep us ticking over for as long as possible.
On top of the groundbait, I also had half-a-litre of worms, which included a pinch of redworms for the hook. The rest of my bait allowance was made up of dead and live maggots, the same of pinkies, plus casters.
The team plan was all about groundbait and worms, with the other baits only really providing extra hookbait options.
My peg and The plan
I was in B section, permanent pegs 16 to 21. Peg 20 was my home, and while we felt 21 was the stand-out peg on paper there was nothing
wrong with my draw. I had practised on peg 20 the previous Friday, so I knew it fairly well.
The team plan was to fish three lines at 6m, 18m and 30m-32m, the idea being to bait the 18m and 32m lines in the 10-minute prebaiting period with three baiting up feeders holding a pinch of worm mush and groundbait.
It was apparent in practice that there was no quick response to baiting, which is where the 6m line came into play. We’d start here and let the other two lines settle.
rapid-fire fishing
There was no doubt the key was tiny feeders and fast fishing you couldn’t bore fish on to the hook! It was far better to fish tiny feeders, sloppy groundbait and chopped worm and cast every 90 seconds to two minutes.
Our plan revolved around three mini-sized feeders – first, and most important, was a Guru Mini Window feeder in 20g. Arrow Valley is only 5ft deep on most pegs and the fish are easily spooked. The Mini Window went in far more quietly than a normal feeder, which helped bites coming for longer periods. It also allowed us to feed very wet groundbait and chopped worms in the feeder, so wet in fact that it wouldn’t stay in a normal cage model.
The second feeder was a 20g Mini Rocket that I picked up in Germany – a good change feeder on the long line to pick up a bonus
skimmer or two.
I also used an original three-hole Drennan cage which was ideal on the 6m line, especially when bites dried up on the window feeder.
FLYING START
At the start of the 10-minute prebaiting period I fed two cages of neat groundbait at 6m, followed by the 18m and 32m lines.
I then kicked off at 6m, fishing double pinkie, and it was much better than I expected with 17 fish for around 1lb 8oz at the 30-minute stage.
Importantly, it meant I had been able to let my 18m line settle for longer than I had hoped.
This paid off, and after 35 minutes the fish switched on and I had a great little run of roach, perch and small skimmers to put 3lb in the net in 40 minutes.
Bearing in mind my target weight to win the section was 10lb, this was a really solid start and the plan seemed to be working perfectly.
Something else we worked out in practice was that you had to catch your fish early – the fishing got harder from the halfway mark onwards.
I had planned to switch to the long line at 32m after an hour, but as I was still getting the odd bite at 18m I decided to stick with it.
I did, however, cast out a big feeder packed with sloppy groundbait and fine chop on the long line.
I wanted to keep the long line quiet but at the same time, having not cast out there, I had no idea what had been eaten. I wanted to make sure there was still some bait out there.
GOING OUT LONG
I managed to stay short up to the 90-minute mark, by which time I had 37 fish for around 6lb.
This was now the crucial point of the match, as I needed to go to 32m, but practice suggested that once I did, my two short lines would be obsolete. It almost felt as if I was chasing the fish out.
First cast produced nothing, but when the second cast saw an 8oz skimmer in the net I knew I was up and running.
For the next hour I kept nicking the odd fish, mainly roach with an occasional skimmer mixed in, but I was ticking over whereas those around me were struggling.
This pattern continued right to the end of the match. Whenever the swim died I simply put a sloppy groundbait and chopped worm feeder in and dropped short for 10 minutes to rest it.
The short line didn’t produce another bite, but it was still a resting line when I needed it.
Single dead maggot was best on the hook for the skimmers, but as the match got harder and harder a worm head came to the fore.
At times, in fact, I could pick stamp roach up on a tiny worm head when I couldn’t get a bite on anything else!
Only half filling the Mini Window Feeder made a huge difference too, and helped to keep the bites coming for longer.